


Escape or Change

by candle_beck



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My broken heart is our number-one starter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape or Change

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted January 2005.

Escape or Change  
By Candle Beck

Billy Beane has a hard time talking to the press about Barry Zito.

Right after, obviously, there are a lot of questions and he’s got a couple of things pre-polished that he tells them:

“Zito is one of the best young pitchers in the game.”

“There has been some inconsistency, but it’s never been anything serious.”

“He’s got a Cy Young, I think he’ll be fine on his own.”

“Barry Zito will not be traded.”

He says that one a bunch, “Barry Zito will not be traded.” He says it sometimes in the car driving to the Coliseum, in the break between Rancid songs.

There’s a good atmosphere of despair and panic around the ballpark these days. And in the sports pages, on the call-in shows, on local coverage. The sky is falling all over the East Bay. Hudson gone, Mulder gone, and Zito with his 25-23 record over the past two years, the fucking twenty-six year old veteran of the rotation.

It’s quite clear that the water is rising. Oakland isn’t a huge media town, which is one of the reasons Beane likes it, but he did let the book get written. He’s exceptionally proud of his team, and wanted to show it off. Now his team is in pieces and everybody’s still looking at him.

People talk about Rich Harden with a terrible kind of hope, and in the back of all the questions Beane gets asked is the one that never gets asked, not directly:

“Zito? Really?”

It’s like the worst consolation prize ever. It’s everybody’s broken heart made into the number one starter.

Four days after, and Beane has talked to Hudson a bunch of times, mainly about the best schools down in Atlanta. Beane would just give him Tom Glavine’s number, but he’s pretty sure there’s more going on beneath the surface than Hudson is letting on. That’s how Beane deals with the world—he always knows if there’s something going on beneath the surface, he just rarely knows exactly what that something is. Usually, what he does know will suffice.

Mulder hasn’t spoken to him since the day of. Billy left him a message, but Mulder never got back to him. That’s never happened before, but of course, it’s not like Beane is his boss anymore. Beane doesn’t know if it’s a deliberate brush-off, and doesn’t really care. He doesn’t have much to say to Mulder, anyway, it just seemed like a courtesy.

Zito’s been disappeared for a couple of days. Since the news of the second trade broke. Everybody’s been trying to track him down, looking for quotes and reactions and fuck-all. Beane’s tried to call him, too, just to make sure he doesn’t say anything dumb when the press does find him, just to get their stories straight, but Zito’s phone has been straight-to-voicemail ever since Mark Mulder became a Cardinal.

Zito does this stuff like he was trained for it. Beane knows perfectly well how a wool beanie pulled over his hair and his hands in coat pockets can turn Zito anonymous. Blink and he’s just another college kid home for Christmas break.

Beane’s sometimes girlfriend is friends with Alex Chavez, because that’s just how shit works at this level, so he knows that Eric Chavez was in Hollywood over the weekend but Zito hasn’t turned up anywhere, missed a show date with his sister’s band and everything. It’s all very mysterious.

Zito will call in eventually, from wherever-the-fuck he is, the side of the highway or a gas station on the New Mexico border, he’ll call Mychael Urban or Susan Slusser and then they’ll call the front office and Billy Beane is counting on that.

Beane gets a phone call at the Coliseum, on his private cell phone the number of which he hardly ever gives out. It’s a 510 area code but he doesn’t know the number and usually he’d let that go, but it’s not even four o’clock and the sky is already getting dark, and the off-season is barely half-over, so he picks up and it’s Zito.

“So, I’ve asked a bunch of people, and they all say that you’re a dick.”

Beane sits up, but not with any kind of haste. “Zito.”

“Billy.” Zito’s got the whole irritating-mimic thing down cold. He has been a little brother his entire life.

“Where are you?”

Zito sniffs. “Nowhere.”

“Don’t fuck around, kid, there are a lot of people who want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

Beane thinks about tracking devices. Have one implanted when they sign a contract. Never lose another starting pitcher again. Zito would have worn a dog collar with a radio antennae sticking out the side of it if Billy had offered it to him with his signing bonus.

Billy sighs. Life would be so much easier.

“Look-” he starts, but Zito cuts him off.

“Don’t you want to hear about the people who think you’re a dick?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Well, you can just hear from me, then. I’m A-number-one on the list.” Beane can see   
Zito’s face, just perfectly, all twisted up and his mouth scrunched small. Beane gets annoyed pretty quickly.

“All right, motherfucker, go ahead and tell me how I gave away your two favorite toys. Go’n and fucking whine about it, Barry, don’t even thank me or nothing. You don’t have to learn a new zip code, but if it means so much to you, if you really think this wasn’t business-”

“Business?” Zito cries.

“Don’t fucking interrupt me. And don’t fucking _vanish_ and act like I’m supposed to be all thrilled that you’re not motherfucking dead. Believe me, I’ve had worse luck lately.”

“I didn’t vanish. You. Fuck you.”

Beane shakes his head, his neck popping briskly. “Running away to Scottsdale counts as vanishing.”

Zito’s silent. Beane makes a little mental checkmark. Score one for his instincts.

Behind Zito’s breath, Beane hears a train passing, and glances idly at his window, seeing a train go by down on the tracks bordering the east side of the park, all clanking boxcars and flatbeds with black crates corded across the back.

Beane stands and goes to the window. He spots Zito’s car down by the 76 Station on 66th Avenue. There’s a payphone there, Beane knows. It’s where he has his staff make the calls that can’t be shown to have come from the Coliseum.

“It’s not nice to leave your sister hanging, Zito.”

Beane can hear the relieved anger return to Zito’s voice. If he squints, he can kind of make out some dark, vaguely shifting shape at the payphone, the bobbing top of a head.

“I don’t recall my family being any of your concern, Billy.”

“I’m just saying, you know how it looks good for you to do that shit with your sister and look all wholesome and artistic and whatever-the-fuck your press release says.”

“You pretty much wrote that fucking press release, dude.”

“That’s what I’m _saying_ , Zito. You got a public image to uphold, so what the fuck are you doing skulking around gas stations on the wrong side of the highway?”

Zito’s quiet again, and Beane thinks he could have a profitable side business—shutting Barry Zito up for a small fee. Right off the top of his head, he can think of twenty-five steady customers.

After waiting a decent amount of time for Zito to respond, Beane sighs impatiently. “So, what, your cell phone’s dead? Or you didn’t get a chance to do laundry this week, got a bunch of quarters to spend?”

“I. I have a laundry service now.”

Beane snorts a laugh before he can help himself.

Zito makes a resigned noise. “Well. I guess I might as well just go up there and we can yell at each other in person.”

“Oh, no, let’s just stay like this. The whole thing feels very dramatic, very movie-of-the-week. Tell me something, do you think the trains passing in the background symbolize escape or change?”

“I actually. I’ve been watching the planes.” The Oakland Airport is just on the other side of the highway. Billy Beane doesn’t even notice the planes anymore.

“Well, pretty much the same thing.”

Neither of them says anything for awhile. Then Zito tells him flatly, “It wasn’t fucking business, man. And fuck you for thinking I’d buy that.”

Beane closes his eyes. “Get up here.”

Zito hangs up and Beane calls down to the security booth at the player’s entrance, letting them know.

*

Zito slouches into Beane’s office like someone once said petulance was a good look on him. Beane thinks his thought about college kids again, wanting to shove a backwards baseball cap on Zito’s head and take the fancy scuba-diver watch off his wrist, replace it with a beat-up Timex won with arcade tickets at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

He’s got a slight sunburn on his nose and cheeks, with his eyes palely sunken, strips from the arms of his sunglasses on the sides of his face. Beane lifts an eyebrow.

“Mulder had the energy to drag you onto a golf course, huh?”

Zito collapses down into the chair, like the tendons at the backs of his knees were cut, and scowls at Beane.

“You know, you’re under the impression that your ability to see stuff and, like, figure out what happened makes you all scary-genius-cool, but it really doesn’t.”

Beane leans back, the desk chair creaking. “No?”

Zito glares at him, and then swallows, an audible click sounding from his throat. “I really. I mean. You really didn’t have to do that.”

Billy Beane makes his eyes all steady and firm. He’s real good at that. “What’d you come back to Oakland for?”

Zito looks away. Beane watches his throat moving for awhile.

“I dunno.” Zito scrubs a hand through his hair. He hasn’t had it cut since the season ended, and Beane thinks briefly about Alyssa Milano for no particular reason. “I don’t know why I’m doing anything, lately. I went to Scottsdale and I don’t really know why.”

He might have said more, but Beane’s short laughter cuts him off.

“I can tell you why you went to Scottsdale, Zito.” Beane smiles at him coldly.

Zito’s hands fist on the arms of the chair. “You don’t know shit. I haven’t fucked Mulder in two years.”

“Yeah, but not for lack of trying, man, right? I know you have a whole,” and here Beane flips his hand through the air contemptuously, “someday-we-will-be-together-again thing with him, and this is all just the hardship to be overcome, but it’s kinda past time that you grew out of it, okay?”

“Bullshit, dude, you’re, you’re so fucking _off_ I can barely even look at you.”

Spreading his hands open, Beane makes his eyes go wide and says, “Well, fuck, _dude_ , tell me how it is, then. I don’t remember you getting this fucking broke up when anybody else got traded.”

“Maybe Hudson and Mulder mean a little bit more to me than anybody else, goddamn it. What are you, fucking new here?” Zito kicks the desk. He doesn’t seem to be looking to do any actual damage, just kind of restless and destructive.

“Maybe they mean more to me too,” Billy says. Zito sneers.

“Yeah, I can tell you’re real torn up about it. No one else to distract me from you, I’m sure you’re crying yourself to sleep at night.”

Beane would just love to punch him. But Zito gained some importance, four days ago. He went from number three to number one, which is change enough to keep Beane’s hands off him.

Beane bites his teeth hard together and says carefully, “This had nothing to do with you and me. I told you that from the very beginning, that you and me wasn’t gonna have shit to do with the team.”

Zito scoffs a laugh, tilting his head back. “You said that so I wouldn’t think sucking your dick would keep me from getting traded. This is, like, the exact opposite of that.” He points at Beane, trying to look tough, Beane can tell, from the set of his jaw and the flick of white in his eyes.

“This isn’t me taking something too seriously, Billy, this is you. You’re the one who got personal shit mixed up with the team, so quit telling me it’s got nothing to do with you and me. Who the fuck has me and Mark Mulder on the same block and chooses me?”

Zito doesn’t even say it with any frustration, or at least, none overt enough for Beane to pick up on. Beane thinks about Zito when Zito first came up, how he would have fought to the death anyone who rolled their eyes at hearing his name and Koufax’s mentioned in the same sentence. The cocky punk with cause to be arrogant, who knew exactly how good he was, knew exactly how much he had going for him.

Beane lets himself sink back in the chair, and shakes his head. “You’ve never been hurt.”

Zito blinks. “Sorry?”

Gesturing abstractly at Zito’s legs, Beane tells him, “Knee surgery sophomore year, when you were at Pierce. Nothing since then. You haven't missed a start in five years, even that time you were practically delirious with fever you made 'em give you the ball. You never have learned how to dress for the Midwest in April.”

Zito crosses his arms over his chest. “Cute, Billy. You’ve winning me right the fuck over, I swear.”

Beane brings his fist down on the desk, a little harder than he expected to, and he’s talking fast, clipping off the ends of words. “You’ve never been _hurt_ , Barry, you’re some kind of genetic freak. Your out-pitch should have shredded your elbow a fucking decade ago, but no. Shit like that never happens to guys like you, does it? God, if I coulda got odds on your whole fucking _existence_ -”

“You wanna get to the fucking point? Jesus. You talk more than Byrnes.”

Beane’s eyes turn fierce. “The _point_ , is that Mulder’s got a bad back and a bad hip and sometimes a bad shoulder, and Hudson’s oblique isn’t something that can be fixed. The point is that I had a twenty-six year old Cy Young award winner who hardly ever even gets the flu, and two injury-prone starters who couldn’t quite pitch their way through September.”

Zito shakes his head, not buying that for a second. “Who also happen to be two of the best pitchers of all time.”

“Not yet, they aren’t. Hudson’s not even thirty yet.”

“Well, they will be. And they’ll do it for, for, those fucking, the fucking _National League_.” He kicks the desk again. “God! Didn’t you even take any calls from the Mariners? We coulda at least still been in the same division.”

Beane rolls his eyes, pressing his tongue up against the back of his teeth. “Excuse me for not managing my team with your road trip convenience in mind.”

“Oh, fuck you Billy, honestly. Fuck you for saying it’s because of the injuries, and fuck you even more for saying it was because of September. You know I spent all weekend down in Phoenix trying to convince Mulder that he didn’t get traded because he choked at the end of the season?”

Beane curls his lip up. “Touching.”

“Shut the fuck up. Hudson, fine, that was business. We were all expecting him to go, ‘specially after the GM meetings. But you could have afforded Mulder for next year, even if you weren’t planning on offering him a contract. It was six million dollars, man, you coulda found it somewhere.”

“And then after next year when I can’t afford either of you anymore, what, start all over again with Harden and Blanton? You know how fucking lucky I got with the three of you? That shit doesn’t happen twice, Zito.”

“Oh, all the more reason to break us up just as soon as possible.” Zito’s clenching his hands on the arms of the chair; Beane keeps listening for the crack of the wood giving.

He tries to glare some more and is mildly successful despite the true current of exhaustion finding its way through him. Apparently, glaring is his default.

“As soon as possible was five years ago. It was right after 2002 when I could have gotten most of the Baltimore organization for you.”

“Aw, and miss out on the past year and a half of fucked-up co-dependency? Not for the world, baby,” and Zito’s got his face all lined again, his mouth slack and cruel, his eyes shining brightly.

Beane jerks his head to the side, and decides that it’s really been a long enough off-season as it is. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“You invited me up.”

“Now I’m inviting you to leave. Telling you to, in fact.” Zito doesn’t move. He’s got a whole staring-contest thing going on, if Beane would meet his eyes, but Beane’s not really in the mood. He squeezes his hand into a fist on the desktop. “I didn’t trade Mulder because you were fucking him.”

“I’m _not_ fucking him.”

“I don’t believe you.” He holds up a hand before Zito can protest, shaking his head. “No, seriously, I don’t believe you, and I don’t care, so it doesn’t particularly matter what you say. That’s not why I traded him. I traded him because I think this is as much as I’ll ever be able to get for him.”

Now Zito’s shaking his head, but slower, looking diehard certain. “You’re wrong.”

Beane shrugs. “Maybe.”

Zito doesn’t say anything for awhile, then breathes out carefully. “So where’s that leave us?”

Beane sighs. “Well, I don’t know, ace,” and he sees Zito’s head snag minutely—Beane hasn’t called him that since 2002. “Why don’t you tell me?” Billy Beane is pretty tired.

Zito twitches in the chair for a minute, considering. His eyes jitter across the photos and souvenirs on Beane’s walls and desk. He picks up a baseball card in a plastic case, a small leg on the back propping it up. Zito looks at Beane in surprise.

“You wore the number twenty in Minnesota? I didn’t know that.”

Beane shrugs again, his eyes narrowing. “Man’s gotta have some secrets, I guess.”

Zito just stares at him, looking insubstantial and the kind of young that it hurts Beane’s heart to see. Beane holds his gaze, because fuck if Barry Zito’s gonna be enough to scare him off.

Eventually, Zito clears his throat and puts the baseball card back on the desk. When he leans forward, his shirt collar moves and Billy sees the new hickey on his shoulder. He smiles inwardly and makes another mental checkmark.

Zito fiddles with the seam of his jeans and asks, “The security code still the same at your house?”

Beane exhales, and shakes his head. “New system. It’s 5-13-78.”

Zito stops, becomes for a moment completely still. He meets Beane’s eyes without challenge, just surprise. “Please be kidding.”

Beane grins. It feels like the first real expression he’s had on his face in days. He shrugs. “It’s easy to remember.”

Zito’s eyes widen. “It’s creepy.”

“It’s memorable.”

“It’s my birthday!”

Beane points at the door. “Get the fuck out of my office.”

Zito stands, is half out the door before he turns and arrows a finger at Beane. “I’m still pissed off at you.”

Beane flaps his hand dismissively. “Yeah, that’s something I really care about.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Beane gives him the biggest grin he can find. “It’s your favorite thing about me, kid.”

Zito’s hand closes tightly around the doorjamb, but Billy doesn’t know if that’s forcing himself to stay or to keep from hitting Beane or what. He sees Zito’s throat swallowing a couple more times, thinks that he probably knows that as well as he knows anything, the move of Zito’s Adam’s apple and the push against Beane’s hand, against his mouth.

“Call me if you’re gonna be late so I can start drinking alone,” Zito says to him, and Beane inclines his chin up.

Zito leaves and Beane returns the calls of some reporters. He still doesn’t sound right, talking about Zito. He says it some more, “Barry Zito will not be traded.” He keeps waiting for that to not be true anymore.

After the sun goes down, Beane calls him, straight to voicemail like every call for the past four days.

Beane pours three fingers of whiskey into one of the clear plastic cups from the executive suite bathroom, and tells Zito’s phone, “Start drinking alone, babe. I don’t think I’m making it home tonight.”

THE END


End file.
